iPad 2: Big trouble for Android tablets?

Share 451

Apple's Steve Jobs taunted tablet competitors at the iPad 2 launch with this slide.

(Credit: James Martin/CNET)

We've all known more or less what was coming for a while. The iPad 2 was going to get slimmer and lighter, have a faster processor and better graphic engine, as well as sport cameras in the front and back--oh, and the already impressive battery life would be about the same. We also knew that if past Apple product upgrades were any indication, the new, improved iPad was going to be the same price as its predecessor. And it is, with the Wi-Fi-only version of the iPad 2 (16GB) starting at $499.
So what's this all mean for Android tablet makers? In a word: ouch.
To be fair, the folks at Motorola, Samsung, and BlackBerry-maker RIM knew what was coming, too, and there wasn't much they could do it about. The Motorola Xoom, the first tablet to run Android 3.0 for tablets (also referred to as Honeycomb), has similar specs to the iPad (see Mac Observor's spec comparison chart here).
It, too, has goodies like a dual-core processor, front- and rear-facing cameras, and HDMI out (Apple makes you purchase a separate cable). But it's slightly heavier than the iPad 2, weighing a shade more than the original iPad. And its first iteration,with built-in Verizon data services, costs $799--that's $70 more than the equivalent 32GB iPad 2 (with built-in AT&T or Verizon 3G).
Motorola has hinted that a cheaper, Wi-Fi-only version will be available at some point, but it has yet to officially announce it. Dumb. It's also said that the Xoom is 4G capable, yet you have to send your Xoom in to get it upgraded. Also dumb.
At least the Xoom is available for purchase. Many other tablets, like the much-hyped BlackBerry PlayBook and HP TouchPad (both non-Android devices), are still a few months off. And it's unclear just what sort of significant advantages they might offer over the iPad 2, except that they're not Apple products--and some people would simply prefer to go with an Apple alternative.
I don't blame them. Competition is good. But with the iPad being so solid out of the gate and Apple's marketing machine firing on all cylinders, even if you equal Apple on the specs and features front, if you can't beat it on price--by a significant margin--you're in trouble. Tie goes to the incumbent here. And the winner right now is Apple.
Alas, the tablet space isn't the PC space, where Windows still holds a dominant position and PC makers can undercut Apple with lower-priced machines. As it stands, Apple's the dominant player in the nascent tablet space, and it's been able to strike market-leader deals on parts, which has made it very difficult for others to compete.
Nor is this the smartphone space, where carrier choice remains a big factor and more-affordable Android models with impressive features and designs have become very capable alternatives to the iPhone. Also, the BlackBerry remains strong, and there's more differentiation in the smartphone arena, especially when you consider how many people prefer physical keyboards instead of the virtual-only option found on the iPhone.
A tablet, however, is basically a tablet. Maybe there's some potential for a laptop/slate hybrid, but the reality is that the tablet is what it is: a slab with a touch screen, the thinner and lighter the better.
In fact, at this moment in time, the tablet market appears to have more in common with the MP3 player market. You remember that story? The iPod came along and quickly took a big chunk of the market. Sony was too worried about DRM issues to counter with anything. And others, like Creative Labs, offered compelling alternatives, but Creative couldn't outprice or out-market Apple. Microsoft gave it shot with the Zune, and even though the Zune HD was a really nice product, it wasn't better than the iPod Touch--and it wasn't any more affordable.
So what should makers of Android tablets do? Well, they probably won't--and shouldn't--give up. But they do have to figure out a way to make their products appear more affordable than Apple's, as well as differentiate them--and that doesn't mean just touting Honeycomb (Android 3.0) and the Android ecosystem.
Unfortunately, the fact that a slew of very similar-looking Android-based tablets are coming to market this year actually works in Apple's favor. Why? Because it creates confusion for the consumer (which Android tablet should I get?) and makes the iPad 2 stand out even more as the simple, safe choice.
Ultimately, the most logical play here is to go where Apple isn't. And that means going smaller and more affordable. We're talking Galaxy Tab land. As proven by the $249 Nook Color's success, which is probably the best-selling Android-based tablet on the market right now (Barnes & Noble hasn't reported sales figures yet), there's a big opportunity in the 7-inch tablet size. You hit that space with something slim and well-designed that offers decent performance at a reasonable price for a Wi-Fi-only model ($299 or so) and you're going to do well.
Of course, it's not quite as simple as that, and it remains to be seen whether manufacturers can make a worthwhile profit at those price points. But that's where manufacturers need to go. And they'd better go there soon, or Apple will get there first with its own iPad Mini.

 

Still no Google Instant for Opera browser fans

In September, Google said it hoped to bring its then-new Google Instant search feature to users of the Opera browser "shortly." A half-year later, there's still no sign of it.
Google still is working on it, though.
"We've encountered some technical barriers that are temporarily preventing us from making Instant available for Opera," Google said in a statement yesterday. "It's difficult for us to estimate when we will overcome these barriers, but we want to bring Instant to as many browsers, platforms and regions as possible."
It's not clear exactly what those glitches are. Opera fans are able to use Google Instant by setting their browser to lie about its identity and tell Web servers it's Firefox, so clearly the feature isn't totally impossible.
Opera, based in Oslo, Norway, long has had a loyal following of passionate users, and the browser maker has often been eager to embrace new Web technologies, so being stuck in a tech backwater clearly is frustrating to some users.
Opera is continuing to advance its browser. New features emerging in a beta of Opera 11.10, code-named Barracuda, include support for several new standards. You can download Opera 11.10 beta for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
Among them:
• the Web Open Font Format, an attempt to bring better typography to the Web via downloadable fonts.
• CSS's linear gradients, which can create gradual color transitions and fades without requiring images to be downloaded.
• CSS's multi-column layouts to make it easier to provide newspaper- or magazine-like look to Web pages.

Browser communication boost back on track

After a security problem derailed it last year, a technology to open a high-speed browser communications link is getting back on track again.
The technology, called WebSocket, is good for Web sites that involve time-sensitive communications--multiplayer games or real-time trading, for example. A security issue raised concerns about WebSocket led to reworking of the technology, but now supporters think they've fixed WebSocket.
"It seems like it will happen very soon," said Brian Albers, vice president of development at Kaazing, which commercializes Web Sockets. "There's a meeting of the IETF at the end of the month in Prague. There's a lot of movement to get this wrapped up by then."
WebSocket abilities
What's the hurry? Simply put, a desire to use the WebSocket interface to dramatically overhaul what advanced Web programmers can do. It makes it easy to open a direct link for things like stock quotes, instant messages, or text typed into a Google Instant search box, for example.
As Web applications get more and more like applications that run natively on a computer, that becomes important. For example, in an online multiplayer game, the central game program running on a server needs to send and receive updated information from the players frequently and rapidly.
Today, communications between a browser and a Web server use the serviceable but sluggish HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) to communicate. It comes with a lot of overhead, meaning that a lot of extra data must accompany the actual information that's being exchanged. A browser must repeatedly poll a server to check for any changes.
That suits it poorly to Web pages that send or receive short, frequent updates. The amount of data for the communications overhead is dwarfs the data of the message itself by a factor of 100, and a lot of complicated programming and processing is required.
"It's like sending to business card to somebody in a cargo ship container," said Yuan Weigel, Kaazing's vice president of marketing. WebSocket, in contrast, opens a low-overhead communication channel and leaves it open for software to use.
If you want to get a flavor for its possibilities, check Kaazing's WebSocket demo page. Or try your hand the Scrabble-like WordSquared game, powered by Pusher's online WebSocket service, or Rob Hawkes' space-shooter called Rawkets. Admire the eight-computer Web-based aquarium demo, which uses WebSocket to keep the different machines in sync. Or compare (during trading hours), the performance financial quotes appearing at Cantor Index and WorldSpreads.
"You'll notice that Cantor's [prices] change on a 'polling' basis rather than live, and their pricing on this page lags Worldspreads by 2 to 3 seconds at the moment," Weigel said. "In a market where companies win or lose customers based on available real-time information, this is extremely compelling."
Of course, Kaazing has a vested interest in touting the technology. It sells proprietary server software to handle the business end of WebSocket, including higher-level technology built on the WebSocket foundation, and it also offers extras that let customers use WebSocket even if their browser doesn't have the technology built in. The company is aiming in particular for the financial services market to start.
But Kaazing isn't alone. In addition to browser makers, there's also an open-source project called Jetty that offers WebSocket support. And plenty of other companies are involved in WebSocket, including Sony, Cisco Systems, Ericsson, and Qualcomm.

 

Google working to reverse Chrome bloat

When Chrome got its start, the browser was svelte and fast-loading if limited.
Now, it's got plenty of features, but two years later, it's nearly three times bigger. And Google, deciding that's not a good thing, has set up a task force to curtail Chrome bloat.
The task force is "aggressively looking at options to bring down the size of Chrome distribution binaries," said Anthony Laforge, Chrome technical program manager, in a mailing list message this month. Binary files are the ones computers understand; they're created from human-comprehensible source code.
With broadband connections, large file sizes aren't necessarily a showstopper. But they can cause plenty of problems. Chrome Developer Ian Fette described two:

1. We do distribution deals with Chrome, where we bundle Chrome with other products. These get difficult when our binary grows. 2. We see increased download failures / install dropoffs as the binary grows, especially in countries with poor bandwidth like India. India also happens to be a very good market for Chrome (we have good market share there and growing), so that's also very problematic.

Added another Chrome programmer, Adam Barth:

At a more macro level, adding MB to Chrome is pretty invisible to developers. It's a tragedy of the commons, where each of us grazes our cows just a bit and piles on just a few more KB. Performance would be the same, except we're fanatical about not regress startup or page load performance. Maybe we need to be more fanatical about not regressing binary size?

Chrome has grown from 9.0MB with version 1.0 to 26.2MB for version 10.0 on Windows. Despite being dogged by reputations of being bloatware, Firefox 4.0 is 12.0MB for the Windows version.
Chrome has proved to be influential. It increased the relevance of the open-source WebKit browser engine project on which it and Apple's Safari are based. Mozilla has embraced Chrome's fast-rev ethos, starting after today's release of Firefox 4.

And although it's hard to find a direct link from external statements, it seems likely that Chrome helped to add fuel to the fire Microsoft lit under its Internet Explorer developers. With IE9, released last week, Microsoft once again has a competitive browser. (For a walk down memory lane, check this superb tour of Internet Explorer 1.0 through 9.0.)
Google updated its Chrome logo last week, though the change won't arrive beyond the developer version of the browser until Chrome 11 reaches beta and stable versions.
"Since Chrome is all about making your web experience as easy and clutter-free as possible, we refreshed the Chrome icon to better represent these sentiments. A simpler icon embodies the Chrome spirit -- to make the web quicker, lighter, and easier for all," Google designer Steve Rura said in a blog post yesterday.

 

Firefox 4 doubles IE9 24-hour download tally

Share 96

Firefox 4 doubled IE9's download total in less than 24 hours after its release.

(Credit: screenshot by Stephen Shankland/CNET)

Firefox may be under fire from Microsoft's newly competitive browser, but with more than twice the downloads in its first day, Firefox 4 soared over its rival by one measurement Wednesday.
Microsoft, not without reason, boasted that IE9 was downloaded 2.35 million times in the first 24 hours since its release last week. And that is indeed a big number, especially for a browser that tech enthusiasts had scoffed at for years.
But less than 24 hours after its launch, Firefox 4 cleared 4.7 million, according to the Mozilla Glow site that logs downloads.

That's a lot less than the 8 million copies of Firefox 3 that were downloaded in its 24-hour debut, but that event was a heavily promoted "Download Day," and it should be noted that Firefox 4's full day hasn't finished yet.
And it does signal that at least a very sizeable chunk of the Net-connected population is, in Firefox's apt phrase, choosing to "upgrade the Web." New browsers bring new Web standards, new performance, and often a new auto-update ethos that likely will lead to browsers staying continuously updated. That could simplify lives for Web developers who constantly wrangle with the difficulties of supporting old browsers.
Firefox 4 brings a raft of new features--new security and privacy options, faster loading and JavaScript, support for a variety of new standards including WebM video and WebGL 3D graphics, and 3D acceleration that extends even to Windows XP.
Mozilla expects that its arrival will lead to an increase in usage. The browser maker said it has 400 million Firefox users and counting, but as a percentage of worldwide browser use it's lost share to Chrome, which now accounts for more than 10 percent of usage worldwide.

 

Adobe aims to enable multi-device video rights

Adobe Systems today announced a service it hopes will enable TV companies to let people to watch their video where they want--cable TV subscribers who'd like to see a show on their computer, tablet, or mobile phone, for example.
Such sharing has been difficult because of rights management issues: those who create premium video content are leery of seeing it spread willy-nilly, and supporting a multitude of devices is complex and expensive.
The Adobe Pass service is designed to smooth over these issues using a combination of Adobe's Flash software and HTML5 Web technology. Users need only log in to the service; no "additional" downloads are required beyond, presumably, Flash or a browser that's up to snuff.
"The Adobe Pass solution enables content providers and programmers to adjust to a changing market- allowing consumers to watch pay TV outside of their living room, while staying committed to a single provider," Adobe said in a statement.
The service works on Windows, Mac OS, Android, iOS, Blackberry OS, and Google TV, Adobe said. And it's won over a few partners in the pay-TV business, both content creators and distributors: Turner Broadcasting System, MTV Networks, Comcast, and Synacor. Pricing to use the
The move shows Adobe's gradual move from lower-level technology to higher-level services. The company has a big business selling programming tools that let people create Flash content and applications, but Adobe Pass bridges to a future where Flash Player can't be expected to be installed--on Apple's iPhone and iPad, for example.
"The solution leverages the industry leading Flash Platform for a seamless high-quality experience along with Adobe Flash Access for enhanced security," Adobe said in a statement. "Adobe Pass also utilizes HTML5 for devices where Adobe Flash technology is not yet available."
But Adobe offers some reassuring words for piracy-phobic pay-TV companies that choose the Flash route: "The Flash Access client-side security built into Flash Player 10.1 and higher enables fraud prevention by binding the user to their device so limits can be set on devices per-household account," Adobe said.